Places other than Schaumburg exist?

Wow! Places other than Schaumburg, IL exist.

I think you'd almost have to have lived there to understand :-)

| 18 Oct 2006 | #

Looking out my backdoor

Just got back from Illinois, left the front door open, oh boy...

We're home. And safe.

Update: So our trip home was.... interesting.

We arrived at O'Hare at about 10am and checked in with the Qantas partner in that part of the world, just some "American airline". Check-in amazingly took over an hour as the lady booked our seats, unbooked them, printed boarding passes, ripped them up, and started over again several times. The worst part of this was for the 3 flights OHA->LAX, LAX->MEL and MEL->ADL she split up the seats so the four members of our family weren't sitting together.

Not a huge problem until you realise we have 2 children under 4 years of age.

So getting through security went ok, and saying goodbye to Heather who had met us at the gate, we boarded the aircraft for our 1pm flight. S convinced a gentleman to give up his seat so the 4 of us could sit together, which was very nice of him.

Flight went well, with the kids did very well on flight #1. Arriving in Los Angeles meant we had an 8 hour stopover, since the booking system I had to use wouldn't let me choose more sensible flights. If you haven't been there, the international terminal at LAX, the Tom Bradley, has got to be one of the most boring terminals on the planet. No place for a family of 4 to spent 8 hours waiting for a flight.

We went to see the Qantas counter about the poor seat choices and they were wonderful. Honestly, given a choice I'll never fly international with anyone else. They fixed our seat allocations for the next 2 flights and apologised for their partner carrier's ineptness. Thanks Qantas.

Finally boarding QF094 bound for Melbourne, we had a long 15.5 hour flight ahead of us. With 2 small kids that's a long flight. The 747-400 had a small mechanical problem with 1 of the 16 wheel brakes reporting a fault, meaning we had to detour for repairs. This was because Melbourne airport is undergoing improvements to handle the new A380 aircraft joining the fleet soon. But this meant the remaining runway wasn't long enough for us to land on with one brake out of action.

So landing in Sydney was our fate. Unfortunately Qantas left us in the aircraft for about an hour while the brake was replaced. Normally not a problem, but quite tiring after being in the air for 14 or so hours already. Especially with no refreshmeants left. The air hostess was very kind in lending us her mobile phone so we could inform friends and family waiting for us at the airport that there would be a delay in our arrival.

Leaving Sydney we soon resumed our trek and arrived in Melbourne, albeit thoroughly sick of airports and planes by this stage. Local Qantas staff there were unhelpful with luggage, causing a slight ruckass with our heavy suitcases that had been accepted at O'Hare. The detour to Sydney meant we missed our connecting flight, and the need to go through security and check luggage again meant we missed a few more flight opportunities. Finally we boarded our last flight, arriving in Adelaide 2.5 hours later than expected. Glad to be home.

| 08 Apr 2005 | #

Warming Up

Chicago is fighting its way to enter spring. The last 2 days have felt more than warm - I even turned on the air conditioning in the car - even though the mercury reached only 77F (25C). It's almost overwhelming seeing blue skies again, and watching the grass green up overnight. Strip malls (shopping centres) are now selling selling shorts and bikinis, and the mood of people you meet has climbed following the temperature trend - the weather really does affect people's moods. But the warm spell was only brief - last night a fierce storm arrived, prompting another tornado warning, and plunging temperatures again today to around 40F (4C). Running to the car last night in the storm saw me drenched through to the bone as strong rain pummelled Schaumburg.

Unfortunately we'll see precious few moments of spring 2005 here - we're heading home on Monday morning. It will mean 3 winters in a row - although suggesting that Adelaide has winters is nonsense once you've experienced the same here in Illinois. Our belongings have been all packed up by the movers, and our suitcases are standing by for the trip home. S has had multiple farewell events with her new girlfriends, and I've been out to lunch with work colleagues several times. Right now we're in the calm before the storm - the 3 flights that will take us home.

| 01 Apr 2005 | #

A few of my favourite things...

Building upon the list of things that S made - here's my list:

Things that I'll miss in Chicago

Chicago, Our new friends, Navy Pier, Krispy Kreme, Great Grains Crunchy Pecans breakfast cereal, StarBucks, Barnes and Noble bookstores, Borders bookstores, Harvest Bible Chapel, Best Buy stores, Circuit City stores, Comp USA stores, snow, WMBI, Chevy's mexican restaurant, Olive Garden restaurant, The Mag Mile, self-serve and payment counters at grocery stores, Woodfield Mall, Apple stores, Uno's deep-dish Chicago pizza, Millenium Park, Chicago highways, The gym at work, Free Amazon shipping, Friday night eating out, No house maintenance jobs, Column-shift cars, Cheap petrol, The NBA, Major League Baseball, The NFL, The absence of revenue-raisers speed cameras on every road, polite staff at restaurants and stores, Old Navy.

Things I'm looking forward to in Adelaide

Adelaide, Friends and Family, No tolls or potholes on the roads, Driving on the correct side of the road, OBC, Cadbury chocolate, Haighs chocolate, Adelaide Central Market, Farmers Union Iced Coffee, LinuxSA, Froggy Cakes, Talking to people who say car-a-mel, not car-mel :-), Only having 6 channels of TV to choose from, Enclosed shopping centres, A sane affordable medical system, 50F (10C) minimum daytime temperatures in winter, No need to scrape ice from the car windscreen in the morning, Indian restaurants, Australian wood-oven pizza, No tipping, Adelaide Zoo, Kangaroos, Koalas, and Emus, Babysitters :-), Plastic money, Aussie Rules Football, The Redlegs, living in a city of only 1 million people.

| 17 Mar 2005 | #

Fort Wayne, Indiana

On the weekend we drove down to Fort Wayne, Indiana for a concert in their coliseum (sick). A great night out - well worth the effort to drive down. Guy, David, Bill and Marshall were fantastic, and a couple of the supporting acts were pretty exciting too.

We had to drive through Gary, Indiana which has to be one of the most industrialised regions I have ever seen. Steel mills, factories, railroads, smoke, pollution, and despair all were visible from the highway. This is not a place to go on holiday.

Passing through the industrialised area soon saw us in farm country which reminded me a little of interstate driving in Australia. One difference was the driving snow on the way over made things difficult, but on the way back we saw blue skies for the first time in months. That persisted all the way back home, but a return to grey clouds awaited us this morning. Temperature hasn't moved, being high-20's, low 30's (Fahreinheit that is).

| 15 Mar 2005 | #

Another one bites the dust

On the weekend we went and visited The Field Museum in downtown Chicago. Got to see the world's most complete T-Rex skeleton (not to mention the largest) - which has been named "Sue". Seeing paleantologists at work dusting off fossils on the other side of glass windows was interesting - but do they feel like they are in zoo themselves? We saw the Jacqueline Kennedy exhibition, which was overcrowded, hot, and something that toddlers don't enjoy even if their parents do. And what museum is complete without their own McDonald's restaurant, situated right next to the ancient Egypt exhibit?

That's one less thing left to do before we leave Chicago and come home...

| 09 Mar 2005 | #

Tornado

Another strange thing about living in Chicago, Illinois is the risk of tornados. Kansas isn't that far away...

Today at home, S and the kids were watching TV and all of a sudden the TV show stops and a weather warning replaces regular programming:

Tornado warning for Cook County in effect until 12 midday

No-one seems to raise an eyebrow, life continues as normal. My response is to just have a look around in the building that you're currently in and identify the room or rooms that are listed as "Tornado Shelters". About 3 times in the last 6 months the sirens at work gone off indicating that the risk of tornado is high. Talking to locals, there hasn't been a tornado in living memory around here, but nonetheless the warnings continue to go out.

| 02 Mar 2005 | #

Spanish Blue

Last night was dinner and a movie in downtown Chicago, specifically Halsted St, which is sort of a Melbourne Street-in-Adelaide-styled cornucopia of boutique shops, fancy restaurants and theatres. Parking was atrocious - we ended up having to valet for the restaurant.

Dinner was at a Spanish restaurant called Café Ba-Ba-Reeba where the food de jour was tapas - entree-sized (that's appetizer-sized for USA readers) specialities of steak, chicken, mushrooms, squid, goats cheese etc. We just ordered a bunch of the chef's recommendations, sat back and started eating as all these mini-dishes just kept on coming. The theme continued into dessert, with 4 mouthfull-sized chocolate cake, pudding, sorbets etc. All very nice, yummy food, and quite affordable too - by Chicago standards.

The "Show" was Blue Man Group - what an amazing experience! The theatre and set was a sort of Aliens / The Matrix mix of pipes and gushing fluid. The audience in the first 7 rows wore waterproof ponchos - and believe me, they needed it. We fortunately were sitting in row 9, close enough to feel the goings on, not close enough to sufer the consequences. The show itself is a combination of rock music, comedy, and weirdness all wrapped up in blue paint. No spoilers here - it was very enjoyable, and something you should see for yourself if you get the chance.

Overall a wonderful night out.

| 25 Feb 2005 | #

Sara Super Sunday

Yesterday was Sara Super Sunday - combining Sara Yun's birthday with a Superbowl party. The Yun's were so nice to have us over again, this time joined by a bunch of friends to watch the big game. The level of excitement is not unlike a AFL Grand Final party.

The Superbowl is a 3-part event - there's the football, there's food and there's the commercials. All are equal in importance in this unofficial Amercian holiday.

For the record, the Pats won which went with expectations, although most people I spoke with wanted the Eagles to triumph.

| 08 Feb 2005 | #

Disney Photos

While I haven't blogged about it yet, there are now selected photos from the family holiday to Disney World on-line.

| 04 Feb 2005 | #

New Car

After the last incident the rental company agreed to give us a new car. In fact, it's a "free" upgrade from a mid-size to a full-size car - free in the sense that I'm not paying the difference in rental charges from a mid-size to full-size - not-free in the sense that we'll pay more in gas (i.e. petrol) during use.

They gave us a Chevy Impala. Nice luxurious car, everything that opens and closes, but it's so retro! If I didn't see the 2004 car manufacture's plate and the 4000 miles on the clock, I would've thought it was made in the 70's from looking inside. Think Holden Statesman Caprice in the 70's. That's the interior of the 2004 Impala.

| 20 Jan 2005 | #

Cold Snap and Cars

This morning it's 5F (which is -15C). Cold enough to make bare flesh ache. Thankfully we have scarves, coats and gloves. I'm wanting to find a balaklava in the local stores.

Major inconvenience from this was that the driver's side rear door on our car wouldn't shut once opened. The problem self-corrected after driving around with S holding the door closed with the heaters on full-bore for 20 minutes. Hoping that we can swap the car over - this is just too inconvenient. J enjoyed sitting in the front though :-)

| 15 Jan 2005 | #

Wisconsin

Travelled north for an hour or so into Cheesehead-territory to have a look around to see what we could see.

Went into Milwaukee and found a confusing mess of off-ramps and roads towering over high rise buildings. Would have helped if I had brought a map along. Drove along the lake and almost got bogged in snow when someone tried to rear-end our car.

After that little experience, we headed south again on highway 43 South, which is also known as 94 East, which just confirms my earlier complaint.

Stopped at The Brat Stop, which is nice but dated family restaurant filled with normal ordinary country folk, not the city dwellers that you find in Chicago. Nice place with value food, most men wearing Trucker Hats, and TVs everywhere tuned into the only game that matters out here this time of year. We had a good feed and a nice break. I'll have to update the map for our weekend travellin'.

| 11 Jan 2005 | #

Sweet Home Chicago!

Chicago is a pretty city - and hugin is no fun to build.

| 08 Jan 2005 | #

Snow Storm

Over the past 36 hours we've had a big snow storm which deposited about a foot of snow, in what was our biggest snowfall so far.

This morning I got up, waited for the heavy snow to stop, took some photos, and then gave a big sigh when I saw the car. Unfortunately my employer wouldn't spring for undercover parking, so when it snows there's a big job to do. On the car itself was a layer of about 10cm from bonnett to boot (from the hood to the trunk for the Americans reading :-) which isn't too hard to remove with an ice scraper.

The big deal was the snow between the car and the road. With a foot of snow covering the ground, it meant I had to move about a cubic metre (meter) of snow via snow shovel so I could drive the car. 40 minutes later the car could be driven - my hands were frozen but the rest of me was very warm.

Getting to work was a trial too, with traffic moving ever so slowly on the I-53 and quite a few accidents on the way (fender-benders). From leaving my front door to sitting at work has been almost 2 hours.

| 07 Jan 2005 | #

A Book Problem

I have a problem.

They say the best thing to do is to confess it. Well, there you go - I have a problem.

:-)

I love to read books. I love to visit book stores. This weekend, the Davies Expeditionary party of 2004/5 have been suffering from the common cold, so instead of doing the tourist thing, we visited bookstores. Oh oh. On Saturday we visited Barnes and Noble which was a quiet relaxed store with broad subject coverage - with some especially nice photography books. On Monday, we visited Borders which was equally nice, having some rarely-stocked books on Linux and Open-Source.

There's nothing quite as relaxing as grabbing a bunch of books, sitting down in the in-house cafe, listening to piano jazz, sipping good coffee and eating a toasted sandwich, on a cold winters day, and reading. Ahhhh. Out of the 4 day weekend we just had, we got to do this twice. Ahhhh. One of the best perks of spending time in the USA.

Without self-control I could have easily walked out with 20 books. I only bought 3 :-)

| 04 Jan 2005 | #

Christmas 2004

Christmas Eve was at the Zehner's, where we had a wonderful American time. Just like in Australia we stood around the BBQ, cooking up some food - the difference being that it was about -10C - brrrrrr! The Zehner extended family were very kind to us, inviting us in and making us feel very much at home over a big meal. Carol embroidered some beautiful Christmas stockings for J and B, and the Zehner's filled them with American-style toys such as a slinky and Jacks. J and B just loved it! On Christmas Evening we went and visited Jon and Sara Yun, which we know from Harvest. The Yun's were also very generous, inviting us into their home for a meal and making us feel very much at home. We had a great time. The evening was capped off with light fluffy snow - meaning that we did get our white christmas! We felt very blessed over Christmas. More photos available.

| 04 Jan 2005 | #

The Road Goes Ever On

Thanks to Mikal I now can map where I've been. This is very cool.

create your own visited states map

create your own visited countries map

As you can see, I have lots of the world still to go :-)

| 31 Dec 2004 | #

World's Best Chocolate

In my mind, there is now a change in the world's best chocolate - Haigh's Mandarin Creams (item 237) have been replaced by Harry and David's fruit chocolates - especially the raspberries. Yummmmmm :-)

| 23 Dec 2004 | #

Marshall Fields

We went to the Marshall Fields downtown store on Saturday to soak up the Christmas spirit a little. Marshall Fields is sort of like John Martins in Adelaide used to be (before David Jones took it over and closed it down :-( It's a traditional old-century department store - warm and friendly service in a big austere building. They have animated puppets in the shop windows, telling the story of Snow White - quite elaborate. Along with a thousand other people we had a look and J enjoyed them I think.

Of course it was cold standing outside viewing the decorated shop windows - on the way in to downtown we saw from some billboards that it was only 6F (-14C). Brrrrrr.

Inside there's the World-famous Walnut Room - nice place to eat - but there was a 4 hour waiting time to get a table - sheesh. Inside the Walnut room there's a 45 foot Christmas tree - an annual must see for Chicago residents - this year its modelled on a 1960's Whitehouse tree - which ties in with the Jacqueline Kennedy revival that's going on right now in Chicago.

So a nice Saturday out - albeit cold sans snow.

| 21 Dec 2004 | #

Icecream on a cold day

Last weekend we went to Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, IL to shop. Much like DFO in Melbourne, but bigger and having the disadvantage of being individual shops outside (i.e. not under one roof), meaning that visiting on a day that's around freezing is not pleasant (coats on, walk 3 metres, coats off - all day long).

Nonetheless we did well and bought Christmas presents for ourselves, and "saved" money doing so.

We had to try Cold Stone Creamery since it came so highly recommended by the locals here. Very yummy - I'll add my recommendation - pecans, rich vanilla icecream, caramel and chocolate sauces. Mmmmmm.

P.S. I never got around to describing last weekend. We went to the Shedd Aquarium which was pretty good. Baluga whales in huge tanks for you to see, obscure fish and corals for viewing, kids play areas. The only beef I had was the price - like USD 62 for a family of 4. Throwing in parking (USD 12) and shared lunch meals (USD 17), it proved an expensive day out, but I guess you've got to do these things while you're so far from home.

| 16 Dec 2004 | #

flurries

Today is cold.

On the way to work the temperature was about 20F (= -7C) with a wind-chill taking that down another 4 or 5 degrees Celcius. That's so cold that your hands sting if you're not wearing gloves.

Strangely enough there's no snow just flurries being carried by the 40mph (64kph) wind.

| 14 Dec 2004 | #

How to pick an American

If you are ever not sure whether you are talking to an American, ask them to say the word, "Emu".

If they are Australian, they would say, "e-MU" (as in the Greek letter)

If they are American, they would say, "e-MOO" (as in the cow)

| 09 Dec 2004 | #

Not again!

Last night the fire alarm went off at about 2am.

This is now the 4th or 5th time in 8 1/2 weeks. Not happy Jan.

Each time it has gone off it has been in the middle of the night. Only once was it not a false alarm - someone burnt some toast or something. Given that it is freezing or below outside and we have 2 kids under 4, we're not going to stand outside for 30 minutes until the fire dept give the all clear for us to return to our beds. We're now just doing what everyone else in the building is doing - ignoring it. It won't be long before we sleep through the sounding of the alarm.

We've talked to neighbours and it seems that once every fortnight there is a false alarm - and this has been going on for over a year. The appartment block managers try to sound concerned, but they don't do anything about it. They get "someone in to look at it" but the situation doesn't improve. Even the fire brigade don't bother rushing here anymore, and they only send a couple of guys, not a whole squad.

If there ever is a real fire in our appartment block hundreds of people will die because of "the boy who cried wolf".

So we're in a bind - I can demand the corporate housing company to move us to another location, except that we like it here except for the false alarms - there are facilities that keep S and the kids occupied since they only have the car 2 or 3 days a week. And moving would be hard - we'd have to get in professional movers and pack up our stuff again, change our address at banks, the state department, other bills etc. and all that for just another 4 months. It hardly seems worth all the effort. Our safety comes first, but this is ridiculous.

| 09 Dec 2004 | #

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was last Thursday, and we were blessed to be able to spend it at the Zehner's with their family.

After getting lost (due to Michael not being able to follow directions) we arrived at their beautiful traditional American 2 storey to find a snowman sitting out front. We were greeted by the 2 boys and 2 dogs of the family - Cameron, Jack, Ruby and Max (you can guess which way round).

Tom and Julie gave us the grand tour of the place and introduced us to the rest of the family. Tom, while pretending to be a graphic artist, is really a geek from looking at his desk full of computers.

For Thanksgiving dinner we had 2 big turkeys, green-been salad, sweet potato baked dish, salad, along with scone-like dumplings and all the appropriate condiments. That was followed up by pecan pie and the traditional pumpkin pie. Boy, was there too much food!

We had a great time, and got to spend the holiday with some very nice people and felt part of the American tradition that is Thanksgiving. That was so nice of you Zehner's to invite us. We were so tired that we just stayed home for Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving.

| 01 Dec 2004 | #

Drivers Licence

After 3 hours of waiting in lines, sitting a multiple choice exam, and doing a driving test in very light snow, I now have my Illinois driving licence.

This means AVIS will let me keep our rental car, and I won't have to catch taxis. And I got the licence with 5 days grace period left :-)

| 01 Dec 2004 | #

Which way?

North, south, east and west isn't always north, south, east and west respectively here in Chicago.

When driving and you come to an intersection of a road that is aligned north / south, you'll find signs that are giving you the option of going east or west?!? Huh?!?

You see, east and west don't really mean east and west. They mean, "Do you want to go towards the city, or away from it?".

Chicago is situated on the west side of Lake Michigan, so any travel towards the city is east and any travel away from the centre of the city is west. So a road that leads north / south eventually either heads towards the city at one end and away from it at the other - hence the designation of east / west instead of north / south.

Understand?

Me neither.

| 30 Nov 2004 | #

Walking in the winter wonderland!

Woohoo! Last night it snowed for the first time. This is the first time 3 of the 4 of us have seen snow. This morning there's gotta be 5cm of precipitation covering everything.

Today is Thanksgiving - the start of the "Holiday Season", so snow is quite appropriate. We're off to the Zehner's who have very graciously invited us to be part of their celebrations. We're really looking forward to today - the holiday known as the eating holiday! :-)

Thanksgiving write-up coming soon...

| 26 Nov 2004 | #

US Banks

Today I finally received my credit card from a US bank. That was hard work.

You see, some retailers won't accept non-US credit cards, and without one you can't buy on-line from some retailers, or receive good phone card deals etc etc etc.

As an alien they don't want to give me a credit card - even though I have an L1 visa (an employer sponsored work visa), a social security number, and (overseas) credit history. After 3 face-to-face meetings I finally persuaded them to give me a _debit_ card on the basis of my employer vouching for me. But, No credit for you!

So now I can register and get cheap phone calls and I can make use of iTunes while I'm here.

Speaking of banks, the financial system here is quite a bit behind the times. The best you can get on a credit card is 30 days grace, whereas we can between 55 and 60 days in Australia. Likewise line of credit accounts where your purchases made on a credit card are automatically withdrawn from your morgauge after the interest free period is up haven't been heard of. Everything is check(sp - cheque)-based, and are only slowly moving to friction-less payment systems.

But the shop-front side of (e)commerce is great in the USA. Order something on the net, pay via credit card, and it's shipped free to your front door within a couple of days - even if it originated in Shanghai, CN!

| 23 Nov 2004 | #

Weekend of surprises

Went to RAM on Friday night for a meal. Very nice food and we struck up a conversation with the table next to us. Just a couple of business guys, chatting over a steak and some beers. Well, they left the restaurant before us - and paid for our meal!!! What a wonderful surprise - such a nice thing for them to do - we're going to pay it forward somehow.

On Saturday we went downtown and walk The Magnificent Mile to soak up the atmosphere of The Annual Lights Festival. Sort of like the Adelaide Christmas Pageant without Christmas (the MagMile event is unfortunately PC), with 3-4 times the number of people, with only 10 floats instead of Adelaide's 100 or so, and being Disney-centric. But it had great atmosphere which made up for the temperature which was under 3 degrees C!

Sunday was rest and recovery, except that we went to a local mall and bought beanies and gloves. It's getting cold now - Thanksgiving this Thursday will be around 0 degrees C!

| 22 Nov 2004 | #

All quiet on the western front.

We just had our first quiet weekend since arriving in the USA. Up until now it's been, "Go Go Go!".

Well, pretty quiet: J did have another birthday party to attend, we did try a Cinnabon, and we visited Harvest for the first time on Sunday (which was pretty cool), but besides that we didn't do much :-)

(WARNING: Over the top flash demo on the Cinnabon site. This is appropriate given how over the top Cinnabons are :-)

| 16 Nov 2004 | #

Ice Ice Baby!

Last night was cold.

For the first time this morning we found the car covered in ice. It was only 1/2 cm thick, but is was ice. We're gonna need an ice scrapper very soon.

When I arrived at work just before 9am, while I was waiting for Microsoft Exchange to give me my emails (sigh 30 minutes :( I checked what the weather was outside. 29 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -1 in Celcius.

| 13 Nov 2004 | #

Late October in Chicago

The novelty still isn't wearing off - Chicago is a huge city with lots to see and do. We're still learning what is available, so I don't think we'll run out of things to visit while we're here. We had a look just south of the Loop on the weekend and found the Museum Campus and Soldier Field. Places we just have to visit - with the museums we're waiting until we run out of nice weather first, and if the Bears keep winning I definately won't be able to get tickets to see Soldier Field! :-)

On the food side of things, we finally tried a traditional Chicago Pizza Pie from Giordano's. Mmmmm, yum! While I'm reluctant to ever eat pizza from anywhere else again, if I must I wouldn't mind trying Lou Malnati's while we're here. Contrary to what I just said, I've been able to keep to my goal of eating somewhere different everytime we eat out. Over the past few weeks we've now added Lonestar, Stir Crazy, Chevy's and Boston Market to our list of visited eateries.

We finally made it back to Lincoln Park Zoo - it took 2 Saturdays to see it all due to Halloween events on our first visit. The Halloween thing at the zoo had one benefit - J got to meet his hero. The animal enclosures that are here at Lincoln Park Zoo are top notch - better than anything I've seen in Australia - although I think Adelaide Zoo has more animal variety. Since the zoo is free, we'll go back again several times.

Can you tell we're enjoying ourselves? :-)

BTW, more photos have been added from page 8 onwards.

| 09 Nov 2004 | #

The US Election

Well, we've just survived the US election. With the saturation of newspaper, radio, television, and billboards over the past 3 weeks, it's been unavoidable. The initial result is in, and from this summary, it appears Bush is going to win by a larger majority than in 2000. It looks like Bush has won the popular vote and the electoral college vote (whereas in 2000 he lost the popular vote contest but still won).

But elections are a strange thing over here, yesterday the Kerry camp was quoted as saying that they had USD 71 million dollars, and 10,000 lawyers ready to contest the result in court if they didn't win. The Bush camp wasn't much better, saying that they had a war chest of USD 11 million to battle the result in court if required. The Bush camp called Kerry "dellusional" for not conceding defeat already, and Kerry's running mate Edwards was quoted as saying that they'll contest every single vote in court if necessary.

What else is interesting is that Bush is reported to have a personal fortune in the realm of USD 40 million, whereas Kerry is reported to be worth USD 1 billion. So much for throwing away the notion of the rulers only coming from the rich class in society.

Either way, this election has left the USA a divided country. The far east and west coasts voted Kerry, with just about everyone else voting Bush. Reading blogs this morning I've found lots of bitterness and disbelief and refusal to accept what has happened, along with sighs of relief from the other side. Exit polls showed the biggest issue on American minds were moral issues - whether same sex marriages should be recognised, and whether human embryoes can be harvested for stem-cell research. The economy and Iraq were the next 2 biggest issues.

I'll be really glad when the result is confirmed, the legal challenges are gone, because right now it appears everyone in the USA is putting their life on hold until it's all resolved. The mood at work today is sombre.

| 04 Nov 2004 | #

The past weekend

A very nice weekend was just had by the Davies in Chicago. Lots of shopping on Saturday morning (because it was raining) - spent up big at Old Navy, Randhurst Mall, and Circuit City.

On Sunday it was beautiful weather, so in the afternoon, we drove to downtown straight from church. Feeling adventerous, we went via the I-94 instead of the I-90 - without a map. We didn't get lost, so I was pretty happy with my navigation skills. We visited Lincoln Park, 1200 acres of open space forming Chicago's largest park. We walked around the Clock Tower and found the zoo but ran out of time. It was very beautiful down by the lake, must do this again before it gets cold.

Footnote: I forgot to mention one important shop we visited, IKEA, which was amazing. From 10am 'till 10pm that store is full with people buying stuff - probably stuff they don't need too :) (28/10/2004)

| 26 Oct 2004 | #

Same, but different.

Everything is the USA is different to Australia. Everything. But at the same time it's all just the same.

For example, take TV. We have Comcast cable TV at home (it came with the apartment) with some 80 channels. At home, we have 5 channels (7, 9, 10, ABC and SBS). That's quite a bit different. Yet why is it so that there is often nothing on TV worth watching either here or in Australia? :-)

Same with politics. People don't like what Bush has done, but don't like what Kerry stands for. Substitute Howard for Bush, and Latham for Kerry and it's just the same. Even the election result is likely to be the same - the conservatives will be returned. So how are they different? The Australian elections showed that Australia has a vibrant upper house with multiple party representation, where minority views can get aired (e.g. the emergence of the Greens and Family First parties), whereas in the USA it's strictly a 2 party system, and where there is even less difference between the parties. I think Australia's system is better.

There's also the difference in service industries. In the USA walk into a shop and the staff bend over backwards to help you. It's quite a contrast to Australia when sales staff can be even rude (in comparison) to potential buyers. It's been quite an eye-opener for me. Of course the shops are all the same in both places - trying to make you want to buy stuff that you don't really need.

Church is different too - we visited Willow Creek this past weekend and had a great time, just like at our home church back in Australia. Both churches are trying to reach out to their communities, and present a message relevant for today. They are different though on scale. Willow Creek is enormous.

Even light switches are different. Up is on in the USA and off in Australia, and vice versa :-)

| 21 Oct 2004 | #

Chicago Photos up

First set of Chicago 6 month trip photos available at http://michaeldavies.org/gallery/chicago6months.

| 19 Oct 2004 | #

2 weeks down

The Davies family have survived 2 weeks here! Tomorrow is what we're looking forward to - Saturday!

As long as the weather is favourable, we'll drive north on route 12 into Wisconsn to see the "colors[sic] of Fall".

Independant of the weather, we'll make our first family visit to Woodfield Mall, which just has to be seen to be believed. J will certainly enjoy the crocodigle (crocodile for everyone above 3 year of age).

| 16 Oct 2004 | #

A small bright spark

There was one good thing about yesterday - I discovered that the local grocery store, Jewel, sells Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Woohoo!

| 09 Oct 2004 | #

Fun with a rash

So had no fun last night with the company paid-for health scheme - J had a rash and we wanted some advice, so we called up the 24 hour emergency advice line and was refused service. "But my company is paying for this?!?"    "We don't have any record of you in our system - contact your HR department - we won't help you"

Nothing like being in a foreign country, at night, needing medical assistance and being refused it. Not happy with my employer today.

We ended up getting advice from people who would normally have charged for it, but hearing our sob story of being Australians in the US for only 24 hours, they helped us without cost. J is ok, might still need to see a doctor, but that's easier to do during the day.

| 09 Oct 2004 | #